Chapter 59

The handsome man was leaning back in the convertible's seat, head tilted slightly, smiling to show a pair of pointed canines, one hand raised to flash a V at the camera.

But the next second the card flipped, and this part had a cutscene too.

The yellow convertible drove through an intersection, and a truck came racing in from the opposite crossing.

Then the truck slammed into the sports car.

Like a pat of butter melting into the truck's base, with a great crashing bang.

This part even gave a close-up of the car's interior, and blood promptly sprayed all across the phone screen.

Liu Zhiyi: "…"

Then a severed arm rolled down out of the window, blood streaming from the stump.

Bloody as the scene was, under the artist's superb technique and a soft filter —

the image was actually rather beautiful, looking like red cotton thread wound around the arm.

Then the blood spread outward.

The gold-glowing six-star card turned transparent, until it vanished completely.

Liu Zhiyi saw the severed limb beside the sports car.

Blood ran down from the hand of the severed fingers, that thin stream flowing on and on, coming toward Liu Zhiyi's side, and finally stopping at the bottom-right corner of the phone screen.

Liu Zhiyi lowered her head.

She was cradling the phone in her right hand, the lines of her palm pressed to the phone, and the red cotton thread drawn out from those lines was pressed to the phone too.

It looked as though it had joined with the blood-stream inside the phone.

Shen Songyue smiled, satisfied.

"See — you've found a part of his body."

Seeing this red line joined up, Liu Zhiyi switched hands.

She tapped the phone screen a few times.

Liu Zhiyi: "You said he'd come to me on his own, but I can't tap anything here either."

"If it were that simple, we'd have found his body long ago." Shen Songyue pursed her lips. "The group who dismembered the cat built a dungeon on top of Love Heartbeat — but the key has to be given by a character in the game."

Liu Zhiyi: "Given how?"

"Didn't I tell you before — that group used collective thinking to trap the cat. An otome game, put plainly, is a thing where you can only place love on this kind of nonexistent, imagined, perfect other."

Liu Zhiyi: "I feel… what I have for the cat doesn't count as love. Or is it that my subconscious hasn't noticed?"

The moment she heard this, Shen Songyue burst out laughing.

"Of course you don't love him."

Shen Songyue: "If someone else's love could get him out of Love Heartbeat, he'd have been out long ago."

Hearing this, Liu Zhiyi felt a weight lift.

Good — her read on her own heart hadn't been wrong.

Shen Songyue: "But a paper cutout is false, its every move following the game's script, the set program… What do you make of the cat's character?"

"Glad to help others?" Liu Zhiyi wasn't too sure. Though the cat had helped her a great deal clearing dungeons the whole way, from certain conversations Liu Zhiyi had sensed something not quite ordinary…

She weighed her words. "I feel the cat's the kind who puts the big picture first. If I hadn't sewn that doll prop onto him… he might not have leaned toward me so much."

Shen Songyue gave an "ah," as if a little surprised.

"So you felt it."

There were other things she'd felt, that Liu Zhiyi hadn't said aloud.

Even though Shen Songyue and the cat helped her without holding back, Liu Zhiyi could still, now and then, sense something in their manner… coldness.

To describe people who'd helped her that way seemed rather ungrateful.

But Liu Zhiyi had a hunch that for people like the cat and Shen Songyue, they'd do anything to reach their ends.

Shen Songyue: "And I'd even prepared a whole long speech to convince you… Yes, the cat isn't the way you saw him."

Liu Zhiyi: "He has two faces?"

Shen Songyue shook her head, smiling. "Not that — he's good to newcomers, and warm enough in the ordinary way."

Liu Zhiyi: "That doesn't sound like much of a problem."

"The problem is that the cat isn't a person who can love." As she said it Shen Songyue gave a small laugh of her own. "He acts with a clear aim, by any means… though so do I."

Shen Songyue: "When he'd just been dismembered, he sent one line back to the bureau."

She deliberately told only half.

Liu Zhiyi had spent enough time with her to have read her character, and pressed on her own.

"What line?"

"Leave me be." Shen Songyue's eyes crinkled. "That was the only line he sent back."

Liu Zhiyi wasn't surprised; from the moment in her first dungeon when the cat rushed out to take a knife for her, she wouldn't have been surprised he'd send a line like that.

Shen Songyue: "He won't love anyone — not even himself."

"We all know his character." Shen Songyue looked at her. "Even his enemies know it."

Liu Zhiyi: "So that's why they stuffed him into this game?"

"Right." Shen Songyue smiled. "Love is the key to open a person's heart. He can't love, so how could he give the key?"

Shen Songyue let out an air-sound, like a snort.

"Someone like him, under ordinary circumstances, wouldn't produce a feeling like love."

Liu Zhiyi: "…Then my case is a fluke of fate."

But Shen Songyue sighed. "No knowing whether that's a good thing or a bad one."

Liu Zhiyi felt her attitude was a little strange.

"You could just leave him be," Shen Songyue suddenly threw out.

Liu Zhiyi: "How could I leave him be — from the time I entered a dungeon until now, the cat's helped me so much…"

Liu Zhiyi: "You don't want me to save him?"

"It's not that." Shen Songyue knit her brows. "It's just that sometimes I feel… it isn't worth it."

Liu Zhiyi's brows jumped.

Shen Songyue: "The end of the world… the false god's invasion counts as the end of the world, doesn't it — everyone's busy with how to fight back, and he… the cat was right, really: by that time we no longer needed him. Everything was planned out."

Shen Songyue: "He's a fine leader — planned everything out, turned us into gear after gear, the kind where lose one and another slots straight in… He even turned himself into a gear."

Shen Songyue gave Liu Zhiyi a near-malicious smile.

"So when he was dismembered and trapped in the game, we gears really did consider whether to give him up."

Liu Zhiyi was struck still; she didn't know why Shen Songyue was telling her so much.

Shen Songyue: "Zhizhi, you're not the same kind of person as us. I'm afraid you'll be hurt."

It seemed that ever since the false god's invasion began, everyone had turned into a teller of riddles.

You had to find and undo your obsession yourself; some things you had to know, yet couldn't know too much of.

Liu Zhiyi didn't understand why Shen Songyue was so changeable, so she asked outright.

"Hurt by what?"

Shen Songyue's palm opened and closed, and at that moment she really did look a little sorrowful.

"Hurt that the cat and I… aren't the kind of people you imagine."

But Liu Zhiyi was struck blank on hearing it.

"…I'm not actually that dense. What kind of people you are, I can feel."

Shen Songyue put away all her feelings and muttered under her breath.

"Then you can't be fierce with me later."

"When would I be fierce with you?" Liu Zhiyi laughed.

But Shen Songyue sighed.

"I have a feeling you won't be able to accept the cat's and my ideas, and it might end unpleasantly in the end."

Truthfully, Liu Zhiyi wasn't much interested in these struggles; scraping by in the dungeons, and the successive losses of her mother and grandmother, had left her will in ruins.

Liu Zhiyi: "Do you want me to ask what your ideas are?"

Shen Songyue: "Yes. I think some things are better made clear."

Liu Zhiyi: "Then here's what I know — if I don't accept your ideas, will you call off the related plans?"

"No." Shen Songyue said it with certainty. "Even if you knew, it wouldn't mean much — our plan's about ready, which is exactly why there's spare time to rescue the cat."

Liu Zhiyi: "Then don't tell me your ideas. Honestly… I'm pretty lost right now. Mama and Grandma are gone, I want something to do, but I don't want to think about anything too complicated."

"All right." Shen Songyue propped up her cheek. "The truth is I'd meant to talk you into joining our organization…"

No wonder she'd been beating around the bush all this while, one step short of just stating their ideas outright.

Liu Zhiyi: "No thanks."

Shen Songyue didn't press her; she took off her own coat and handed it to Liu Zhiyi.

"All right. The cat's body parts should come to you on their own… but what you'll run into later, I can't say for certain. Mind your safety."

Liu Zhiyi wanted to ask how to find the cat's body parts, since by the look of them they seemed to be inside the phone.

"How do I bring his body into reality?"

Shen Songyue: "I don't know. None of us got the key — only you did…"

Right — she'd have to figure it out herself.

---

Liu Zhiyi didn't sleep a wink all night, thinking about the cat.

She didn't dare let herself go quiet, or she couldn't help thinking of her grandmother, of her mother, and then — what to do about the future?

She found she'd lost her aim.

When her mother was alive, it was to earn more, reach financial freedom, and come back to give her mother a good life.

When her grandmother fell ill, it was that even if the illness couldn't be cured, the two of them would prop each other up — hard as the days were, they weren't unlivable.

But now, all of it was gone.

She actually didn't know what to do anymore.

She'd let go, she'd accepted the loss of her grandmother and mother, she'd found release facing her grandmother's funeral, no longer sinking into grief.

So why was she still this empty?

"Because you're not used to being alone yet."

Shen Songyue put an arm around her shoulders.

"When a person steps into a new life, there's always a lost, at-a-loss feeling. Speaking of which, won't you really consider joining our organization? Something to do would be good."

Liu Zhiyi shook her head.

"It's not what I want to do."

Then what did she want to do?

Liu Zhiyi didn't know.

Once her grandmother's affairs were seen to, Liu Zhiyi went back to the city.

She made an appointment at a photo studio, meaning to have a color photo of her grandmother made to hang beside her mother's.

On the way back, the subway was full of people coming and going.

That hollow feeling in her heart came again.

She saw the people passing by, some cradling their phones sideways, as if playing games.

When a person sinks into emptiness, it seems they think a little more.

Watching those few playing mobile games walk past, a thought suddenly rose in Liu Zhiyi's mind.

Did people who felt hollow inside take games as consolation?

So she lit her own phone too, put in her earbuds, and tapped the Love Heartbeat icon.

The game popped up a new window.

A new event.

Liu Zhiyi was even surprised this cursed game had events.

Looking closely, she found the event had released a new card.

She glanced at the field on the banner showing her remaining pulls.

One left.

Without a thought Liu Zhiyi did a single pull on the pool.

As gold light burst from the pool, Liu Zhiyi thought all her luck this life had gone into this cursed game.

As the card popped out —

the cutscene surfaced again.

Liu Zhiyi heard a man's voice, low and seeming to carry some special current, the kind that set your ears tingling to hear.

This sort of otome game always put great effort into the voice acting.

The man's voice: "Fate really is a strange thing."

In the cutscene the man walked through the crowd, smiling toward the camera.